1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to heat exchange and more particularly to heat conducting panels for stoves.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The high cost of fossil fuel today, particularly oil, has lead to a resurgence in interest in room heaters or stoves which are intended to burn wood or coal. The stoves popular today, though sometimes imitating in style and size the stoves of yester-year, are constructed and intended to be used with a much greater concern for heat conservation, efficiency and safety. Thus, catalogs list "potbelly" stoves, cast iron "franklin fireplaces," "parlor " stoves and even ranges intended for cooking food.
Installation of these stoves is much as it always was and necessitates the use of a flue which normally exits into a chimney and the connection is made through the wall of a room. Thus, in order to use the heater or stove, the heater must be placed close to the wall to avoid an inordinately long flue pipe.
In as much as these stoves or heaters commonly generate radiant heat which, by its nature, emanates equally in all directions from the stove, there is a natural tendency for a "hot spot" to develop between the stove and the wall. Such a "hot spot" is normally detrimental to paint or wood such as wall trim which may be in the area of the "hot spot." Some sort of heat shield between heater and wall is desirable.
However, of even greater concern in light of the rising fuel prices today is the need to extract the maximum benefit from the heat values being generated by the heater or stove. Thus, it is highly desirable to be able to move accumulated heat from this area and redistribute it to better advantage somewhere else in the room or house.
Furnace shields are known. U.S. Pat. No. 3,285,593 to Tavernelli et al, for example, discloses a furnace heat shield. However, the heat shield of Tavernelli is intended to shield against heat losses by thermal radiation from a very high temperature furnace. That is, Tavernelli's object is exactly the opposite of the one of this invention. Tavernelli seeks to hold the heat within a certain area proximate the furnace to increase the efficiency of the heating element of the furnace. The present invention's concern is with removing radiant heat from the furnace area and dispensing same throughout the room.
Another device is disclosed by Shantz in U.S. Pat. No. 655,585. Shantz provides a shield for an in-room heater, which heater is exemplary of the old-fashioned kind of heater enjoying this current revival. However, the Shantz shield provides a device to allow air drawn into the room to feed the fire to be provided from an elevated point in the room where the air of "more pure." Thus, the Shantz heat shield has a ventilator on top of a vertically extending pipe which looks a little like a birdhouse, including wind directional arrow. He refers to this part of the device as a ventilating-hood whose gable roof disguises a curved pipe into which fresh air is intended to pass downward between the double walls of the panel and passes from there into the stove. Thus, the air circulation Shantz speaks of is intended to provide the heater with a better source of oxygen as distinguished from the present invention whose purpose is to better circulate heated air produced by the heater.
No heater panel is known which combines both safety features and an improved method for air circulation and there is, therefore, a need for such a panel. To truly achieve the necessary results, such a panel would need to be versatile in order to accommodate a heater positioned midway along a wall or in a corner, or even in the middle of a room. Such a panel would need to be lightweight to enable its storage in the off season and to be practical would require simple construction of inexpensive readily available parts. In as much as the shield would be a part of the fixtures of the room, an attractive facade, especially one combining utilitarian features, would be desirable.